


Trying Her Best

by Mossclaw



Series: Still We Go On [1]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: BAMF Winona Kirk, Character Study, F/M, this is Winona centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-12 21:29:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13555953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mossclaw/pseuds/Mossclaw
Summary: Watching him, she thought back on all the hardships she had faced, all the ones he had faced, and those they faced together.Winona loves her son, and would do anything for him. She does that from the moment he was born. She tries her best with him, and she hopes it's for the best.***A Winona centric fic, a character study from the moment Jim was born to after ST:ID.





	Trying Her Best

Winona looks down at her baby, her little James Tiberius, and listens to her husband’s final words. She and James - no, Jim - cry together when they get cut off.

She knows that the nurses need to clean him up, but right now, she thinks that if she has to let go of him, she’ll break. This little crying baby is all that is holding her together now. He’s all that she has left of George right now. She’ll have Sam too when they get back to Earth, but right now, it’s just Jim. 

Eventually she does give him to the nurses, but it’s hard.

***

It’s still hard when they get back to Earth, but in a different way. Sam is only six, and doesn’t really understand why Mommy came home without Daddy. It’s kinda funny at first, he asks if Daddy got turned into a baby. It makes her smile for the first time since George died. When she explains that no, this isn’t Daddy, this is his new little brother, didn’t he remember that Mommy and Daddy told him about that, the smile goes away. Because Sam then asks where George is. And she can’t lie to him. There’s a lot of crying in the house that day.

***

There’s more crying from Jim than anyone else, because it seems the little rascal is allergic to everything. The town doctor doesn’t really know what to make of it, but the Starfleet doctor she calls theorizes that being born in the conditions Jim was is probably the root cause. It makes Sam mad that they can’t have eggs and bacon for a while. But when Jim gets over some of his food allergies, Sam gets happy again.

***

He doesn’t stay happy for long when Jim starts to be old enough to talk. Jim seems to know more than he should for a three year old. When Sam brings home his homework from school, Jim sits next to him, and asks him questions upon question about it. Some seem more advanced than they should be. He even corrects Sam on some of his math homework. Winona even checks both of her boys work, and finds that Jim was right that Sam messed up. She starts looking into putting Jim into school early, or finding some exams to help him jump grades.

***

Jumping grades wasn’t as good as an ideas as it seemed. Jim excelled, that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that he got into fights. Jim said it was because the older kids didn’t like when he corrected them. He also said that the teachers never believed that he didn’t start the fights.

When Winona heard that, she was furious. How on Earth could the teachers believe that a four year old is starting fights with seven year olds. She decided right then that she was going to talk to the principal the next day.

***

The talk with the principle didn’t end as she hoped. In fact, it ended with her pulling Jim out of that school and putting him into a different one. She hoped that it went better than the last.

***

It didn’t go better. In the next three years, Jim was a seven year old in the fifth grade, and was on his fourth school. At this point Sam was thirteen, and old enough to take care of Jim on his own for a little bit, so Winona started taking weekend business trips to San Francisco for Starfleet every once and awhile. If for whatever reason she needed to stay for a little longer, her dad would come and watch the boys. It was a good system.

***

It didn’t stay a good system. Her dad didn’t stay in good health, and couldn’t always watch the boys. She stopped talking the longer business trips, and started getting antsy. She wanted to keep working, but her family came first. But she was still a woman. She had needs too. So, she started going out. Not every night, but every once in awhile. Never brought anyone home, and never went home with anyone, because she has to be there in the morning for her boys, but she still met people. And one night, she met Frank.

***

Meeting Frank was a wonderful thing. He didn’t care that she was a widow, as in he didn’t care that she had been married before. He cared about her feelings and her grief, and, most importantly, he cared about her boys. When she finally felt comfortable enough to introduce him to the boys, he was amazing. Frank knew just how to spend time with Sam, and he was always interested in what Jim had to say, even if he didn’t always understand it. He loved her boys. And they loved him. Sam was always talking about something cool Frank had done, and Jim always wanted Frank to come over. So when Frank popped the question, she said yes.

Another thing great about Frank was that he was a great father. He never over-disciplined, and he knew just what to say to Jim whenever he got into a fight, unlike Winona. Frank wasn’t perfect, he did yell sometimes, but every dad yelled sometimes. But he never got physical. If he ever did, he was out. It didn’t matter how happy Frank made Winona, if he hurt her boys he was gone.

Something else about Frank, he understood that she wanted to go back to work. That the stars were calling to her.

***

The start seemed to call to Jim too. Whenever they were talking to each other over the ship’s comm, he was always asking questions about how the ship worked, or what the captain did, or how the stars were looking.

And every time he did, she felt a pang of sadness in her heart, because she can see George in him in the moment, she always can, and she doesn’t know how to handle it sometimes. So she doesn’t. She stays in space for a little longer than she needs to so she doesn’t have to see a little George running around.

***

She wishes she didn’t stay in space that long, because while she’s gone, Sam meets a girl online, and runs away to her (luckily she was real, and her parents sent him back), and Jim gets so mad at Frank for not making Sam stay (even though Frank didn’t know Sam planned this) that he drives Frank’s red Corvette off a cliff. Winona would be furious, but is more overcome with relief that Jim survived. Frank is furious, but still relieved.

Sam only gets grounded because he didn’t steal anything to run away, and he didn’t go very far, as the girl was only two towns over. Winona wanted to do more, but Frank convinced her not too. Both she and Frank are okay with a few month’s worth of grounding for Jim’s stint, both being too relieved to want to do much else, but the authorities say he’s too dangerous to the community to let that happen. The police want to send him to some boarding school in Alabama, but when Frank says that he has a sister on a colony that they could send Jim to, the authorities agree that that would be an okay option. So, two months after the Corvette goes into a cliff, Jim is shipped off to Tarsus IV. Winona thinks that it’s a good idea.

***

Tarsus IV was not a good idea.

***

Getting Jim some therapy was a good idea though. When he got back from… that planet, he doesn’t want to talk about anything, but Winona knows he needs to. He doesn’t eat until everyone else does, and he doesn’t like to sleep in a separate room from anyone else. So, Winona gets him a therapist, and lets him call the other survivors whenever he wants. And if he starts to get into fights again, Winona and Frank don’t say a much about it. The therapist says that as long as Jim doesn’t get too violent, that it’s okay for the occasional fight or two. So, they don’t mention it. It doesn’t mean that they don’t share a glance or two now and then though. 

They just decide to get Jim through high school, and hopefully through college if he wants it.

***

Jim doesn’t want to go to college, at least not a big one. He’s okay with community college. He says it’s because he doesn’t want to deal with stuck up professors who think he’s some dumb hick, which might be partially why, but Winona thinks that it has something to do with the way that he still doesn’t like to leave her or Frank alone for too long. That rolls over to Sam as well whenever he’s visiting. But it also may have to do something with the starship that’s about leave to finish being built in space. That spaceship has been one of the constants in Jim’s life, having been built in town since he was about four, and Jim wants to see it off. 

***

Once Jim sees the ship off, Winona thinks that maybe he’ll want to go to a university of some sort now. The kid’s still a genius, and it hurts her to see him just waste here in this little town. But he doesn’t. He stays, and he helps her and Frank run Frank’s business, and he builds a bike, and really nice one too. He also starts to get into more trouble, and starts to drink, and starts to sleep around, and Winona doesn’t know how to feel about this. So she does what she does best: she runs away to space. She isn’t proud that this is her automatic response, to run. But it is, and she can’t help it. Frank updates her about what’s happening, and she is glad that he’s still there with Jim. Then, she’s shocked one day with two very similar notifications, one from Frank, the other from Captain Christopher Pike. Both make her cry.

***

She cries again when Jim sends her a message a few weeks later, stating the same thing. She sends back that she loves him and is proud of him, and to stay safe. When she’s sent it, she starts to worry. She’s already lost someone she loves to space, and almost lost another, who has know gone back to it. She doesn’t want to lose Jim. She doesn’t think that she’s felt this helpless since George died, or even when she heard about Tarsus IV, and she hopes she doesn’t feel it again.

***

Three years later, her hopes go to waste, as he feels helpless again when she hears about what happened to Vulcan and most of Starfleet’s fleet. And it’s cadets on that fleet. She has no way of knowing whether or not Jim is alive, or if the people he talked about where alive, and she wants to cry. She does cry when she reads the report of what happened. It was happening all over again. The ion storm, the Romulan ship, everything. Only this time, she wasn’t there for her son.

But then, something amazing happens. Because about three hours after “Acting Captain Spock” notified her ship that they were going to meet them, they got another notification contradicting that, from an “Acting Captain James T. Kirk”. And Winona crys.

***

She cries again about four hours later when Jim calls her and tells her what happened. She cries for a lot of things during that call. She cries for George never being able to see the man that their son has become. She cries for what Jim had to go through to be the man he is. She cries for the people that lost their lives, on Vulcan, on Romulus in the future (which she doesn’t even know how to comprehend that), on Tarsus, and on the Kelvin. She cries for Captain Pike, because Bones, Jim’s friend (who survived!!) doesn’t know if Pike will be able to walk again. She cries for Spock, who has lost both his home and his mother. She cries for the Vulcans, who have lost so much, too much. She cries for Earth, which was almost destroyed. She cries with Jim, who starts to cry when he realizes that his friend Gaila may not be one of the few who survived from the other ships. But most of all, she cries for her son, who has gone through so much, and has done so much, and is still living. 

They end the call about an hour later, after Jim gets a call saying he’s needed on the bridge to help with something. She wishes him luck and tells him she knows he’ll be a great captain.

***

She was right, and she proudly stands among the crowd next Sam and Frank as Jim is promoted permanent captain of the USS Enterprise, and is given the honor he deserves for his work during the Narada Incident, as the media has been calling it. She meets what Jim wants to be his senior bridge crew, all except for Commander Spock, who Jim admits to not being able to find since they got back to Earth, besides seeing him in the crowd at his promotion. 

Winona is enamored by the crew, as are Sam and Frank. Bones (who doesn’t let anyone but Jim or Winona call him that) promises to tell them every embarrassing thing Jim had done at the Academy, much to Jim’s horror. Nyota (who only lets Winona call her that) seemed to be one of the kindest yet scariest people Winona has met, besides herself, and Winona respects that. Sulu (who quietly tells them that he doesn’t think anyone realizes that Sulu isn’t his first name) is fascinated by Sam’s work in the botanical field, as he found a solution that can permanently get rid of any harmful fungus (which, when Jim found out what his brother had done, he cried). Chekov (who told Winona to call him Pavel) was intrigued with what Frank did, who was a mechanic, and wanted to know how he did, well, everything. Winona laughed at that and turned to let Frank deal with that when Scotty (who told her that Scotty, was, in fact, fine, and not an unwanted nickname her son gave him) came up to her and asked her to explain anything and everything she knew about working in various ship's engines, as he was completely enamoured with her work. She chuckled and started to explain, when she caught sight of Jim’s face. 

He looked so… happy to be here, with these new friends and teammates, but she could tell that as happy as he was, something was missing. Then, she saw that behind her son, further down the path they were one, was a Vulcan, dressed in a Starfleet uniform, looking at the group. She assumed that this was Spock, who Jim was looking for, but didn’t call out. She just smiled at him, and waved. Jim thought she was waving to him, and waved back with a confused look on his face, but Spock startled at her, and started to move away, but threw up a hasty ta’al before he did. From the way that he was looking at the group, with a sense of almost longing on his face, Winona hoped that she would see Spock with her son and his crew again.

***

And see Spock again she did, as about six months after she saw him staring at the group, the Enterprise’s repairs were done, and was just sent on her maiden voyage, when Jim called her and told her that Spock asked to be his first officer right before they left dock. He joked about being better late than never, and Winona could tell that he was relieved that Spock was on board. Winona was happy for her son, and asked him to tell her whenever they go on shore leave so that they can see each other because now that he was a captain, he would be busy and wouldn’t be able to call her. Jim smiled and nodded, promising to tell her when they went, if he could.

***

And he did, he told her. If they went on a mission near where her ship was stationed, he would send her a message. If they went on shore leave somewhere, he would call her and see if she was near and free. Unfortunately, it wasn’t often that their plans coincided, but it did happen. Like now.

When Jim called her again, she didn’t expect it to be when she also had shore leave, nor at the same place, but she was excited. The planet they were on was beautiful, and had restaurants that Jim could actually eat at. Of course, she didn’t expect for Jim’s bridge crew to come along with, but she loved them too, so it was fine. She also didn’t expect the looks that Jim gives his First Officer when he thinks the Vulcan isn’t looking, and she definitely didn’t expect the looks Jim got back in return when he wasn’t paying attention. They were almost like the looks she and George gave each other before they got together, only more reserved on one side. And if the looks from the rest of the crew were any indication, these looks had been going on for some time. She loved it.

***

What she didn’t love was that those looks caused her son to break the Prime Directive in order to get his First Officer back. Don’t get her wrong, she would have done something very similar if it were George or Frank in Spock’s shoes, but she would have done it differently (mainly because she was the Chief Engineer, not the Captain). She also didn’t love that Spock filed a report, despite his pretty obvious feelings for Jim, which meant that Jim got demoted. Even worse, Admiral Pike got demoted too! She had to admit, this probably wasn’t what the Vulcan had planned; however, it was logical to assume that this would happen, so it was all up in the air. She just hoped Jim would get into less trouble as a First Officer instead of Captain.

***

He didn’t get into any less trouble. By the time she heard about the ambush on the Starfleet building (both of them), as well as Admiral Captain Pike’s death, Jim was already halfway to his destination, and wouldn’t take any of her calls. When she confronted Admiral Marcus, he didn’t give her any information either, which just pissed her off more. She just wanted to know if her son was going to be safe! Was that too much to ask? She left the Starfleet headquarters with a sigh. She knew she could hack in and see what the mission was, but was worried that in her haste and worry, she would leave some sort of trace. So, she knew that she would just have to wait and see what would happen.

***

Seeing a ship (a big ship, very big) crash into San Francisco was not what she had expected to happen, but she rolled with it. What shocked her more was seeing a man dressed in all black push through the crowd, with Spock (what was he doing here, away from Jim??) chasing closely behind. She wanted to follow, but knew that she had to help get people to safety.

(That didn’t mean that she desperately wanted to know why she later saw Spock and the man jump on top of a transport, or why Spock look murderous. Actually, she didn’t know if she wanted to know the answer to that last question.)

***

When she found out the answer to that last question, she was murderous herself. But also grateful in a way. The man that she wanted to despise, that was so easy to despise, also saved her self-sacrificing son, so she didn’t know how to feel. As an officer and citizen, she hated the man, Khan, but as a mother, she was so glad for his blood. Looking at Jim on that hospital bed, it reminded her of Tarsus, and she never wanted to be reminded of that, no more than Jim did. Looking at Jim, she wanted to do the same thing Khan wanted: she wanted to destroy Starfleet for what it did to her son, to her, to their family, but she was also grateful for it. Without Starfleet, she wouldn’t have met her husband, she wouldn’t have had Jim, and the Earth probably wouldn’t be here anymore, because Lord knew how many times Jim and his crew had saved the day. She had a lot of conflicting emotions that day, but she knew which ones trumped over all: love and pride. She loved and was infinitely proud of her son for the man he had become, she loved and was proud of the friends her son had made, who would do anything for him, and she loved and was so proud of the Vulcan who was sleeping in the chair next to her son’s hospital bed for saving Jim’s life. She was a proud mom.

***

Watching Jim recover over the next year made her even more proud. She knew that if he were younger, he would have never put up with the exercises (first hand experience with that), but here he was, leaning on his First Officer has he tried to walk across the room to his CMO, with the rest of this bridge crew cheering from the sides. Watching him, she thought back on all the hardships she had faced, all the ones he had faced, and those they faced together. She tried her best with him and Sam, and she thinks things turned out okay. She came to another conclusion that day, and she wasn’t sure if it was Kirk exclusive, or Terran exclusive, but she was sure of this: No matter what people go through, still we go on.

**Author's Note:**

> So I typed this after the comic book talking about Frank. I don't remember everything it said, but I think it implied Frank was abusive, but I didn't want to change it because of how I typed it all up. Sorry!


End file.
